Always Something
by SoraGirl
Summary: Something is causing Danny's powers to go haywire. But when he finds out that something is one of his best friend, what can he do?


Disclaimer: Don't own Danny Phantom, just own the story :D

Author's Notes: My apologies everyone, this fic was really hard for me to write because we've only had one episode of Danny Phantom so it's we haven't really gotten to know the characters that well or anything like that. Still, from just the first episode, I fell in love with the Danny/Sam coupling, so I had to write a fic :D Hope you like it!

It was always something. 

Since the day he had first stepped into that stupid portal, it was always something. Who could have imagined there were so many unsettled spirits out there, waiting to wreak havoc on the human race? Who could have imagined one of his parents inventions would actually work? Who could have imagined his boyish curiosity would change his life so much? 

Thankfully, today was one of the quieter days, no ghostly encounters just yet. He sank back happily into his chair at the thought, perfectly content to daze off like the rest of his classmates while Mr.Burton droned on about the Civil War. Perfectly content to be like any other teenager, perfectly content to be normal.

He cast a fleeting look at Sam. What would _she_ do if she had heard him think that? Sam was always first to proclaim "normal" as the enemy, and until now, he had always agreed. It seemed that ever since his "accident", he envied anything normal. 

Yes, he had made the decision to keep his ghost powers, to continue being "abnormal"…but it wasn't really a decision. What else could he choose with Sam and Tucker watching on? They would have said yes. They would have kept fighting. He couldn't let his two best friends realize what a coward he really was. What he _really_ wanted was to never even have faced that decision, to never even have gotten these powers to begin with. 

He _missed_ being normal. High school brought enough problems of it's own. Normal kids had to struggle with puberty, dating, academics the same as he did but _normal_ kids didn't have to save the world. Everyone wishes they could be a superhero…but being a superhero is hard work. Hard work that was beginning to take its toll.

"FENTON!" Mr. Burton yelled, waking Danny up from his nap. 

"HUH!?" The boy yelled, startled. He wobbled back on his seat and fell backwards.

The class erupted in laughter. 

"Apes," Sam grumbled, rushing out of her seat to give Danny a hand. 

"Uh, thanks Sam," Danny smiled, beat red, as he turned his desk right side up.

"Danny," Sam whispered anxiously. He looked up to see what was wrong and saw her staring at his arm or well, where his arm _should_ have been.

He voiced a low moan of distress, "Oh no…"  He watched in horror as more and more of his arm started to disappear. 

Sam quickly shoved him down into his seat. "Uh, Mr. Burton?" she laughed awkwardly, "I think Danny bumped his head pretty hard, may he be excused?"

Mr.Burton pondered this for a moment. "Oh, alright," he finally conceded. "Fenton, you can go." Danny breathed a huge sigh of relief, jumped out of his chair, and headed speedily towards the door. Almost instinctively, Sam followed him. 

"MANSON!" Mr. Burton barked, causing both Danny and Sam to turn around. "You stay here. Your boyfriend can take care of himself."

"He-_is_-**not**-**_my_**-**_BOYFRIEND_**!"  Sam growled, irritated. 

Danny might have protested as well, but just as he opened his mouth to speak, his other arm began to disappear. He held back a gasp of surprise and hurried out the door. As soon as he was sure he was out of eyesight, he sprinted towards the bathroom. 

"Anyone in here?" he asked as he entered. No response. He closed the door and walked up to the sink, clutching it with his now transparent hands. "What's going on with you, Danny?" he asked his reflection as he tried to regain control of his powers. "If I'm going to keep these powers, I'm going to have to learn to control them, or else the whole school will find out I'm an even bigger freak then they thought."

_And as an added bonus, you're now a freak who talks to himself_, a voice in his head snickered. Danny shook his head with a sigh, turning on the faucet and splashing his face with water. He closed his eyes and took a few, slow, deep breaths, focusing on making his arms reappear. When he opened his eyes, there they were, two fully functional, fully visible arms. He smiled slightly, took one last deep breath, and headed back to class.

-

 "That was _way_ to close," Sam said as she made a face at the "Meatloaf Surprise" that had been ladled onto her tray. 

"Man, the one time I miss Mr. Burtons class and something entertaining _actually_ happens," Tucker said, obviously disappointed.

"Oh yeah, well, I'm glad my humiliation can be entertainment for you," Danny grumbled sarcastically as the three took a seat at there usual lunch table.

"What happened Danny? I thought you'd finally gotten control of your powers?" Sam asked, placing a napkin over the "Meatloaf Surprise". "Man," she commented angrily, "I can't believe the school board voted they change the menu back. Some poor cow died for this?" 

Tucker smiled victoriously as he shoveled another spork full of Meatloaf Surprise into his mouth, Sam threw him a death glare, and Danny decided to ignore them both and answer Sam's first question.

"I thought I had control of them too," he admitted, "I don't know what happened. I just…I don't know."

"Maybe your powers go nuts when you experience extreme emotions," Sam suggested, "You must have been pretty embarrassed today. I mean, falling backwards in a chair with a room full of teenagers watching. And you did the failing arms thing but then of course, you fell anyway and-"

"OKAY Sam, I get the picture…But I think you may be right....The question is, what do we do about it?"

 The girl shrugged, "There isn't much we can do. I guess you've just got to keep working on controlling your powers."

"How exactly do I do that?" Danny asked, a little irritated. He had almost completely blown his cover today, he needed to fix himself before this happened again.

"We could always expose you to 'extreme emotions' until they don't bother you anymore," Tucker said. He thought about it a little further and giggled maliciously, "Yeah! We could have you dance around in your underwear singing Mmmbop, embarrassment. You could try and beat me at chess, failure. Have you slow dance with Sam, loooooove." 

"_Tucker_," Sam growled threateningly, giving him another glare of impending doom. 

Danny laughed nervously at the joke, _very_ nervously. He wasn't sure if Samantha or Tucker had noticed it but his leg had just disappeared. 

"So guys, uh, the weather's nice…isn't it?" he laughed, trying desperately to change the subject. He was usually pretty open with Sam and Tucker about his ghost powers but this…_Sam_ causing his powers to disrupt…that was something he wasn't ready to share.

Both his friends gave him a strange look. Tucker decided to shrug it off. "Any day with meat is a good day for me," he snickered at Sam.

Sam sneered back at him, spitting out some comment about how it wasn't a very good day for cows that got slaughtered, but then gave Danny a suspicious look. 

Lunch continued as "normal" with the exception of Danny. Sure, his leg had reappeared, but he couldn't take his eyes of Samantha. What was going on? Sam had been his best friend since they were kids and people had been calling them a couple pretty much ever since then…so why was effecting him now? 

Sam noticed his stare. "Danny, you okay?" she asked, taking time out from her own rant.

"Uh, oh, yeah, fine…I'm fine," he said, laughing again. It was clear Sam didn't buy it but she didn't say anything. 

_Not again_, Danny grumbled to himself, shoving what was left of his arm under the table. "Uh, I've got to go…homework, you know? I'll see you guys later!" he announced, jumping up from the table. 

"DANNY!" Tucker and Samantha yelled after him. 

He sprinted, but he knew it wasn't fast enough. Suddenly, he was flying through the air, back into the bathroom. He dropped to the floor with a thud, fully human again.

He sighed.

This could not be good. 

-

"So, want to explain what's going on?" Sam asked, eyebrows raised, from the door of his room.

"Sam!" Danny gasped, flashing completely transparent. 

She quickly closed the door behind her and locked it so Danny's parents wouldn't walk in.

"This is more serious then we thought!" she whispered. "Is this why you went home? Danny, if you're not at all in control of your powers anymore then something big must have happened. Maybe something happened in the portal or maybe some ghost is disrupting-"

"No," Danny interrupted her nervously as he slowly reappeared. "It's nothing like that…"

"So what is it?" she asked, walking closer she saw the embarrassed look on his face. "Oh god, it's not like…ghost puberty or something is it? I better get Tucker."

Sam turned to go and Danny had to make a spilt second decision. If he let Sam go now, he might never be brave enough to tell her what the _real_ cause of these sporadic disappearances…but then, it didn't seem like he'd be able to tell her about it anytime soon…Still, he couldn't go on like this; he had to do something, and he had to do it now.

"Sam, wait!" he said, reaching out and grabbing her hand to stop her from going any further. As soon as he felt her hand in his, he disappeared again.

Danny could almost see the gears turning in Sam's head as she slowly placed two and two together and let his ghostly hand slip from her grip.

"It's me…isn't it?" she realized, plopping down beside the slowly reappearing Danny. 

Danny nodded, laughing awkwardly, "Yeah."

A series of horrible thoughts passed through Samantha's mind, thoughts of losing her best friend, "Are you…allergic or something?"

Danny laughed a little more, "No. Not exactly."

He paused, uncertain of weather or not to continue. He glanced at his friends face, full of worry and anticipation, and knew he had to go on. 

He knew what he was going to say was difficult but thankfully, he had some time to think about it. As he spoke he focused hard on staying visible.  "Remember earlier you were saying that my wigging out was caused by 'extreme emotions'? Well…I think you were right, at least partially…Man, Sam, we've been friends for such a long time…and that makes it even harder to say…but lately, I've been feeling…feeling kinda like I can't breath around you anymore but when you aren't around, it doesn't seem to matter if I breath or not because all that really matters is when I'll see you again. It's like…when you're around, I can't think of anything else in the world, I can't even think about keeping my powers straight. And I've been thinking…maybe all those people have been right all along, you know? Maybe we really could be more then just friends." 

By some divine miracle, he had managed to stay corporal through out his entire speech. Now, as he waited for Sam's reaction, he wasn't so sure he could keep it up.

"Danny, I…" but for once in her life, Samantha Manson couldn't think of something to say, she could only lean forward nervously, unsure of what to do next. 

Neither teen was very experienced with the matter and both of their hearts were pumping more blood to their heads then they knew what to do with, causing the process to be painfully slow. First, Sam approached timidly, until Danny leaned in suddenly, causing them both to pull back. They tried again, with another failure. They both smiled and blushed awkwardly, almost a silent agreement to try this again. This time they both approached cautiously, until finally, there lips met. 

Almost instantaneously, Danny disappeared. Sam nearly feel forward, but caught herself, and Danny reappeared. 

Without realizing it, Sam was inching forward again. "Sam," Danny started anxiously, "I don't think we should-" He fumbled with his words as Sam drew nearer and nearer. 

"Uh-huh," she nodded, somewhat in a trance, eyes locked with Danny's. Danny slowly became mesmerized, leaning in as well.

"It could be dangerous," he mumbled.

"Yes, you're right. Too dangerous," she nodded but made it clear that wasn't going to stop her.

"We shouldn't until we know more about-" he said, heart racing.

"Yeah, I agree," she replied, entranced. 

"We could..." With less then a centimeter between them, he stopped, his heart beating too frantically to make words. He threw caution to the wind and they started to kiss again.

This time, he was able to stay corporal for a little while longer. He wrapped his arms around his friend and deepened the kiss. Slowly but surely, the kissing became more and more passionate until suddenly they were falling.

Straight into a table. 

Without realizing it Danny had gone ghost again. He and Sam had passed through his floor and the kitchen ceiling before finally reappearing and smashing into the dinner table.

Sam laughed, blushing, as she looked at the crushed table, "You were right. I guess that was a little dangerous."

Thankfully, Danny's parents had been in the lab when the table was broken and when they finally found the massacred thing, Danny asked as surprised as them. His father blamed it on a ghost, of course. Little did he know, for once, he was right. 

Before Sam left, she awkwardly gave Danny a kiss on a cheek as he very nearly fainted. They would both have to get use to this boyfriend/girlfriend thing.

But for now, no one seemed to really notice that when the two casually walked down the hall, hand and hand, only one hand was really there. 

Danny Fenton wasn't normal anymore…but he wouldn't give it up for the world.


End file.
